SIDELIGHTS: An important novelist in Spain, Carmen Martín Gaite began writing in the 1950s when she was in her mid-twenties. Many of her works focus on dreams versus reality, the power of literature, and life in Spain. In addition to novels, Gaite has also published several nonfiction works of note prior to her health in 2000.

Entre visillos was Gaite's first long novel. The plot focuses on a sixteen-year-old girl named Natalia who faces social limitations in her community in Spain as she reaches womanhood. Other women, such as her sister Mercedes, lose themselves by conforming to local expectations. Some women do not conform, including Elivira, who lives in a fantasy world she constructs though even she undermines her talent as an artist. Over the course of the novel, Natalia learns how to not conform and improve her self-esteem with help from a teacher named Pablo. One critic saw a link between Gaite and Natalia. Writing in the Symposium, Marsha S. Collins commented: "this is the tale of Natalia and Pablo, but it is also the story of Carmen Martín Gaite, who defied the destructive pressures of a disciplinary society to inscribe the space of female identity in Entre visillos."

Another novel, which was a literary success as well as a best seller in Spain, also explores the life of women. Published in Spanish as Nubosidad variable, it was also translated into English as Variable Cloud. At the novel's center are two women, Sofia and Mariana, who were close friends for much of their early life. Their friendship ended when they unknowingly fell in love the same man. After a break of thirty years, the women reconnect and learn that they have not done what they could have with their lives.

Gaite emphasizes the idea that literature is important in creating memories in Nubosidad variable. Commenting on the English translation, Trudi Tate, writing in Quadrant, suggested that Gaite succeeds in this area. As Tate wrote, "the healing power of story-telling is a commonplace of literature and psychoanalysis, but Martín Gaite manages to make it seem new, perhaps she is so fascinated by the role of the imagined reader, whose phantom presence shapes the writing."

As in Nubosidad variable, La reina de las nieves also has a focus on literature, in this case, a fairy tale. Translated by Margaret Costa as Fallen Angel, the book is set in the 1970s, and the protagonist, Leonard Villaba, is a prisoner who has been recently released. He has no relationship with his parents who, he learns, have died in a car wreck, so he seeks out the past by going to Madrid. In the story, Leonard finds solace by reading The Snow Queen, by Hans Christian Andersen. In a review of Fallen Angel, Booklist contributor Marlene Chamberlain stated that "what is unique is that Gaite takes us … seamlessly through the fragments of Leonard Villaba's existence." A Publishers Weekly reviewer also responded positively, concluding that "Gaite delivers an engrossing tale inhabited by deeply human characters and passionate landscapes. The novel glistens with intelligence and heart."

Writing and fantasy also play a role in Gaite's El cuarto de atrás, which was translated as The Back Room. Though the novel has a focus on reality and dreams, the unconscious and conscious, and how writing is done, it is also influenced by the effect the oppressive regime of General Francisco Franco had on Spain, especially on the middle class. The story has at its center an author, somewhat based on Gaite, who is roused from her sleep by the spirit if a male journalist. Critiquing the translation in Review of Contemporary Fiction, Brian Budzynski called the text "hypnotic" and commented that "The Back Room is an exquisite creation, elegant, smart, and sad—a remarkable story of the nature of a consciousness."

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